Muʿjam al-Aḥādīth al-Muʿtabara, Ishaq b. Ammar – Ḥadīth #1

Muʿjam al-Aḥādīth al-Muʿtabara, Ishaq b. Ammar – Ḥadīth #1

[1/123] Rijal al-Kashshi: Hamduwayh and Ibrahim from Ayyub from Ibn al-Mughira from Ali b. Ismail b. Ammar from Ishaq who said: I said to Abi Abdillah عليه السلام – we have some wealth and we deal with the people [lend it to them], and I fear that if an event occurs [I die] our wealth will perish [in the hands of the people], he said: recover [re-collect] your wealth every month of Rabi`, Ali b. Ismail said: and Ishaq died in the month of Rabi` [thus the wisdom of the Imam’s instruction was comprehended].

al-Najashi says: Ishaq b. Ammar b. Hayyan, the client of the Bani Taghlib, Abu Ya`qub al-Sayrafi, a Shaykh (chief) from among our companions, Thiqa, and his brothers Yunus, Yusuf, Qays and Ismail, he is part of a big family of the Shia, and the sons of his brother – Ali b. Ismail and Bashir b. Ismail were both Wujuh (eminent) among those who narrate the Hadith.

Ishaq seems to have been pretty wealthy. This is confirmed not only in the main report above but two others as follow:

Muhammad bin Masud who said: Muhammad bin Nusayr narrated to me saying: Muhammad bin Isa narrated to me from Ziyad al-Qandi who said: Abu Abdillah عليه السلام used to say when he saw Ishaq b. Ammar and Ismail b. Ammar: Allah may sometimes unite them both for some people – that is – (unite good in) the Dunya (i.e. wealth) and also the Akhira.

Does the Imam know how long his Shia are going to live? This question requires a full and exhaustive study best left for another day.

It is my hunch however that the Ghulat took this idea [the kernel found in the Hadith] including the notion of Ishaq’s wealth and used it as a template [embellishing details to the above basic version] for their own motives of establishing a high Imamology.

Nasr b. al-Sabbah who said: al-Sajjada narrated to me saying: Muhammad b. Wadhah narrated to me from Ishaq b. Ammar who said: I was seated with Abi al-Hasan عليه السلام when a man from the Shia came and entered, he [the Imam] said to him: O so and so, renew your repentance and begin worship for it is not left from your life except one month, Ishaq said: so I said in my heart (to myself): how strange! as though he wants to convey to us that he knows the life-spans of his Shia [or he said: our life-spans], he [Ishaq] said: so he [the Imam] turned to me in anger and said: O Ishaq, what do you find strange in that, Rushayd al-Hajari was just a weak person [not an Imam] and he had the knowledge of predicting fates, the Imam is more worthy of that than Rushayd al-Hajari, O Ishaq there remains from your life two years, verily the people of your house will undergo most grievous circumstances [after you] and your family will be totally bankrupt.

al-Sajjada [in the chain] – upon him be the curse of Allah – was one the of the worst of the Ghulat and was accused of lying. Muhammad b. Wadhah only occurs in this single chain in our whole corpus which is another red flag.

A variant of the Sajjada narration is also found in Usul al-Kafi where it is narrated by one of the less scrupulous of al-Kulayni’s teachers i.e. Ahmad b. Mihran who is weakened by Ibn al-Ghadhairi [I can only imagine that this was in al-Kulayni’s more immature days in Rayy].

Abu Samina was a Ghali who is arguably the most notorious liar we had. He cannot have narrated directly from Sayf without there being at least one intermediary between them because of the time-gap. [So much for the claim that al-Kafi is wholly authentic!]

What are the odds that three men accused of lying each occur in one of the chains narrating variations of the same report?

If forced to venture, I would accuse al-Hasan b. Ali b. Abi Hamza for fabricating this [because of being earlier in the Tabaqa] and al-Sajjada and Abu Samina for stealing it from him because of how amenable it would be for circulation in their circles.